And while we’re are at it, let’s pull the life-support plug on the other nincompoops too, i.e. Ash, Vikram and Mani Ratnam.

For it’s this wicked quartet that bamboozled us of 2-hours and 28-minutes and some precious $$ by falsely promising to show us a movie. 🙁

Pathetic Shit

Folks, no ifs and buts here, Raavan is a pathetic piece of shit.

It boggles the mind that a man with 27-years of experience as a director, yes, we’re talking of Mani Ratnam here, can put out shit like Raavan and try to fob it off as a movie.

Only in the Bollywood cesspool, folks. Nowhere else can such garbage debut on so many screens worldwide.

By the way, this irresponsible clown Mani Ratnam is also responsible for the screenplay.

Too Many Problems

There are too many problems with Raavan.

Let’s start with the story.

Since Indian movie-makers are just unable to think of engrossing story-lines they are forced time and again to fall back on the old epics. A fortnight back, it was Raajneeti (based on the Mahabharat) and today it’s Raavan.

As is obvious to the dullest of the dullards, Raavan borrows heavily from that other great Indian epic Ramayan.

And so we have this so-called movie Raavan set in the present but with a cast of characters drawing from the Ramayan.

Abhishek Bachchan is Beera (the demon king Raavan), an amalgam of Robin Hood and a dangerous criminal holed up in the jungle terrain of a fictional area called Laal Mati.

Vikram is the dark-glasses wearing police officer Dev (Ram). And then there are an assortment of supporting characters like Hanuman (played with some elan by Govinda), Vibhishan et al.

But in this twist on the Ramayan, we have the camera focusing more on Raavan and less on Ram.

That’d be fine too if only the story manages to hold your attention. But the shoddy screenplay leaves no chance of that.

Shallow, boring story, and how so. Everything gets the superficial treatment here. Be it the love between Dev and Ragini, the police war on Beera and his cohorts, Beera’s attacks on the police or the growing fondness of Beera for Ragini or her Stockholm Syndrome (??) like behavior.

Hopeless Caricature

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times. Abhishek Bachchan is a hopeless retard with an AQ (Acting Quotient) lower than that of a baboon. This acting thing is just beyond this creature.

What Abhishek does on the screen ad nauseum, ad infinitum is not acting but a grotesque perversion of it.

Hopeless miscast in the title role, Abhishek lacks the gravitas and screen presence to pull off such a pivotal character.

Utterly unconvincing, with eyes wide open often and a weird laugh, Abhishek looks and behaves like a whacko on an overdose of cocaine.

Unlike other great villains in Indian movies, notably Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh in Sholay, Abhishek Bachchan never once evokes fear in Raavan but seems strangely comical.

Never has the mighty demon king Raavan been reduced to a weird caricature through the actions of a pygmy on the screen.

When he’s with the fellow tribals, when he’s with his kidnap victim, when he’s fighting the cops and in the key confrontations (with Ragini and with the cop Dev), Abhishek is all at sea. Beyond salvage.

When the woman calls him a janwar (animal), the simpleton laughs like a compliment has been proffered.

If Abhishek is the shortest midget in the acting menagerie in Raavan, his co-stars Aishwarya Rai and Vikram) are not far behind.

When she’s not tormenting us with her shrill screams, Aishwarya is too wooden to show even a spark of acting talent. Be it in the initial confrontation with Beera or the polygraph test moment with her husband on the train or the final scenes the woman is a nightmare as far as acting.

Oftentimes, Aishwarya never looked like she was a kidnap victim in the rough milieu of a jungle but more like a beauty queen with some minor discoloration on the face.

Vikram, the South Indian actor who has demonstrated some acting skills in the past, is a complete disappointment here.

Not once do we see the anguish after his wife is kidnapped or the passion for his wife in the bedroom scene nor the aggressive determination to finish Beera. Au contraire, the fella has the look of a desperately constipated man whose bottle of laxatives is missing.

Rest of the Drivel

Much has been said of Raavan’s supposedly breathtaking photography. While we would not deny that the movie has been filmed in the picturesque, lush jungles of India it’s by no means a work of art.

Neither the music nor the accompanying picturization add much value to the movie. The picturization is mediocre at best.

Also, there’s poor chemistry between Vikram and Aishwarya Rai, an inexcusable sin considering they are supposed to be deeply in love with each other and the raison d’etre for much of the movie.

8 Responses to "Raavan Review – Beastly Nonsense"

oh…is it that bad? i can only see the complete bullets of blast…thats completely disappointing from Madras Talkies production house.

whats your stand? convinced to watch Raavanan or watching ?!

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Raavanan, here we come.

முனிAndy June 18, 2010 at 6:43 pm

sole viewer.. that was surprising.. Are you still ballsy enough to watch Raavanan?

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Yeah, bring it on.

No one ever accused us of being pussies. 😉

rakeshbaba June 18, 2010 at 10:17 pm

if ratnam will cast some actors as he done before like arvind in roja and bombay,revathi in mouna raagam or even kamal haasan in nayagan.he should find some new talent instead of directing buffoon ash and abhi

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Abhishek and Ash are lost causes (as far as acting).

Rajarajan June 19, 2010 at 1:18 am

Raavanan is nothing better, saw it yesterday and wasted my time, except for vikram and some lush cinematography , the movie has nothing to offer.

I am pretty sure, your review provided me with more entertainment than the movie itself would have.

Instead we went for Toy Story 3. It’s a nice movie but not worth 9.5/10 or 99% rating. I was never a fan of Toy Story series any way.
Have you seen the previous 2 in the trilogy? Any plans of watching the 3rd?

SearchIndia.com Responds:

No, haven’t gotten around to Toy Story 1 or 2. Been on our list for a long while.